The silence that followed the disappearance of the arrow's tip was profound, broken only by the sound of rain falling on leaves and their ragged breathing. Tainá stood still, staring at the impossibly clean hole in the earthen barrier where a lethal weapon had been just an instant before. Slowly, she turned her face to Nzambi, her dark eyes reflecting the scant light of the rainy late afternoon.

  "That dagger of yours..." she began, her voice a mix of admiration and disbelief. "...is truly something out of this world. I don't know why you were hiding such a power, it must be—"

  She cut herself off mid-sentence, her warrior senses suddenly flaring. Her fingers tightened around her staff, and her eyes narrowed as if listening to something beyond the rain.

  "More people are coming," she said, her voice growing tense and urgent. "Many. The slave hunters, the ones who were following us. They're not hiding anymore. They're coming straight at us, fast. What do we do?"

  Her gaze turned to Whisper, who answered.

  "Can you sense it, Tainá? Are Pedro and the others nearby? Which direction?"

  Tainá tapped the tip of her staff on the wet ground with a soft toc, closing her eyes for a second. The earth spoke to her, transmitting the echo of dozens of heavy footsteps approaching at a run from the west. And also, fainter, like a whisper from much farther away, the pattern of many feet standing still, crouched, waiting... to the north, following the creek's course.

  "Yes," she confirmed, opening her eyes. "If we continue our normal route, we'll reach them in less than half an hour. But... are we going to lead the enemy straight to them? Are we going to give away their location?"

  It was Whisper who answered, her brain connecting the dots while still feeling the fatigue from the mana drain.

  "They've probably already been discovered," she said, pointing at the hole in the barrier. "Did you see the tip of that arrow? It wasn't just iron. It was a crystal. Transparent, smooth. It makes no sense to put a crystal on an arrow's tip... unless it's not the real tip, but a lens. A Vision gem. That must be why that damn thing knew who to aim at, knew where we were."

  The realization hit Nzambi like a shock. He was watching us the whole time. Good thing I made the whole thing disappear, gem and all.

  Whisper, recovering a bit of her breath, straightened up. Her face was pale, but her eyes were determined.

  "We have no choice," she said, her voice firm. "Here, we're three exhausted and surrounded people. There, we're with the whole group. Give me your hands. And, Tainá, bring down this earth. I still have enough strength in the shadow to get us to Pedro. It's our only chance."

  Tainá looked at her, then at the woods from where the sounds of pursuit grew louder by the second. She nodded, a decision made. Without another word, she struck her staff on the ground one last time and stomped hard with her right foot.

  The earth obeyed. The thin walls of the shield that had protected them collapsed inward, not with a crash but with a soft, controlled collapse, like a wet sand structure being undone. The loose earth and roots rolled to the sides, exposing them once more to the rain. In the center of the small circle, a larger stone was exposed, its shadow elongated by the oblique light.

  "Now!" Whisper ordered, extending her hands.

  Nzambi and Tainá grabbed them. The instant their fingers interlocked with hers, the deep shadow beneath the stone seemed to liquefy and rise, enveloping them in a mantle of coolness and silence. They were swallowed, and the last thing Nzambi saw before total darkness were the first silhouettes of armed men emerging from the trees fifty meters away.

  The journey through the shadows was a nightmare of disorientation. Whisper pulled them with desperate force, each jump from one patch of darkness to the next shorter and shakier than the last. She was at her limit, using the last reserves of her strength and mana. Nzambi felt the moisture of moss, the roughness of tree bark, the cold of stagnant water, all filtered through the strange non-tactile sensation of shadow passage. The smell was of ozone and old earth.

  After what felt like an eternity but was probably only a few minutes, they emerged.

  The darkness of the shadows was replaced by a different darkness: a dense, milky, humid fog that clung to the skin and reduced visibility to a few meters. The air was cold and heavy, smelling of stagnant water, wet leaves, and the concentrated sweat of many people.

  They had appeared directly in the shadow of a person—a tall, alert silhouette with its back to them. The person sensed the movement, spun in a combat reflex, and a bluish ice blade materialized in the air, pointed at Whisper's throat.

  "Halt!" Pedro's voice cut through the fog, full of a tension ready to explode.

  "Pedro, it's us!" Tainá said quickly, before the blade could advance.

  The ice blade hesitated. Pedro scrutinized their mud-smeared, exhausted faces through the veil of mist. His posture relaxed a fraction, but his expression remained grave.

  "The slave hunters are coming," Whisper spoke, "coming in force. And... we managed to destroy the assassin's arrow. It won't find us anymore."

  The information was like an electric shock. Pedro absorbed it with a single nod, his face showing a swift, profound relief that was immediately supplanted by the urgency of the new danger.

  "How many?" he asked, his voice low.

  "Dozens. Maybe more. And they know the general direction," Tainá answered.

  Whisper, recovering a bit of breath, stepped away from them. She didn't look back.

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  "Whisper! Where are you going?" Pedro asked, watching her blend into the denser fog.

  It was Tainá who answered, wiping water from her face.

  "She has a weapon. A very powerful weapon Carlos gave her. With it, she can kill from a distance without getting close. She's going to try to disrupt their approach, buy time."

  Nzambi was confused, turning to her.

  "How can she use another magical weapon? She barely has any mana left after bringing us here!"

  Tainá looked at him, infinite weariness in her eyes.

  "And who said it's a magical weapon?" she asked, almost whispering. "It's a firearm, Nzambi. Like the musket you had to abandon back there. Only... better. Faster, more accurate. Doesn't use mana. Just powder and aim."

  The explanation left Nzambi speechless. A weapon that didn't rely on gems, just skill? It sounded almost like cheating, but he remembered the whole army was supposedly going to be equipped with weapons like that. If everyone had weapons like that now, they wouldn't be facing so much difficulty.

  Pedro didn't join the conversation. He stepped away from them, climbing onto a large, smooth stone that emerged from the fog like a giant turtle's shell. From there, he could see a little beyond the mist, seeing the blurred shapes of his people crouched, waiting. He filled his lungs with the damp, cold air, and when he spoke, his voice echoed with surprising clarity through the white mantle.

  "Attention, everyone!" he began, and the whisper of conversations and the noise of weapons being prepared ceased. "Reinforcements are on their way! But before they arrive... we have one more battle ahead! Remember the plan! Hold your positions! Get ready!"

  It wasn't a minute after he finished speaking that the sound came. Not of gunshots, but of a distant horn, its deep, menacing sound breaking the silence. It was a single, long blast, followed by two short ones. The signal to attack.

  They had arrived.

  The fog was a formidable defensive wall, hiding their numbers and positions. But it had a price: without Vision adepts among them, they were also blind, seeing little beyond their noses. The first real sign that the battle had begun wasn't visual. It was auditory.

  CRACK!

  The sound was dry, clean, different from the deeper, smokier blast of a musket. It came from the front, from the direction of the horn. A second later, another CRACK!. Whisper was at work.

  On the front line of the fog, the men and women with muskets knelt in an irregular formation. The air was charged with the silent tension that precedes bloodshed, mixed with the damp smell of earth and rotting vegetation. The persistent, fine rain fell, threatening to turn their only tactical advantage into a collection of useless clubs.

  But in the center of the line, one figure stood out. It was Isabela. Instead of a musket, she wielded an object strange for a battlefield: a large umbrella with reinforced black rubber cloth. However, this was no ordinary one. The handle, made of dark wood, had a huge bluish gem embedded in the grip, pulsing with a soft light like a heart of pure water.

  Isabela closed her eyes for a moment, her lips moving in an almost inaudible whisper. The gem in the handle glowed more intensely. Then, she raised the umbrella and opened it with a fluid motion.

  It wasn't just cloth unfurling. It was as if she had opened an invisible dome of will. The raindrops falling on the line of soldiers, within a radius of about five meters in front and to the sides of her, were diverted. They didn't freeze, didn't evaporate—they simply curved in the air, flowing sideways as if they had hit a glass dome. The ground beneath the soldiers remained relatively dry, forming a surreal island amid the soaked earth. The sound of rain hitting the invisible "roof" was a soft, constant drumming, a protective sound. Furthermore, all the moisture on them and in their powder seemed to be expelled from the area.

  "Steady now!" the line corporal whispered, relieved. The hands that had trembled more from fear of weapon failure than from the enemy now steadied around the muskets. The firing mechanisms were protected. The powder in the flasks, dry.

  Isabela didn't stop there. While maintaining the barrier against the rain with immense concentration—her face already showing the strain, a sweat different from the ambient moisture on her brow—she made a second movement with her free hand. From the top of the umbrella, where the gem was, a new mist began to emanate. It wasn't the dense, general fog that already covered the field; it was a localized, thinner, more selective curtain that she sent forward, over the soldiers' heads, to mix with and thicken the existing mist well ahead of them, further obscuring the attackers' vision.

  This was her function, the reason why she, a Water Adept—normally relegated to support roles like drawing well water and watering crops—was on the front line. Chief Commander Specter had personally commissioned the weapon from the Popess's magical Artificer, after witnessing the monstrous scale of her mana reserves. She had the energy well of three common adepts. And today, that well was being drained to keep the muskets dry and the enemy's vision blurred.

  Hold on, Isabela, hold on, she thought, feeling the drain like a cold weight in her gut. Every diverted drop, every created veil of mist, had a cost. But she was the tacit pillar upon which the first line of defense rested.

  It was then that the barking began. Frenzied, guttural, coming from the white wall ahead.

  One of the earth adepts, Lívia, kneeling behind the line with a gloved hand on the ground, murmured:

  "Wait for it... they're coming."

  The shadows of the dogs appeared first, wet, dark ghosts materializing from the mist. Then, the larger, heavier forms of the men behind them.

  "NOW!" Lívia's voice cut through the air, coming from the rock.

  And the line of muskets, thanks to Isabela's dry dome, worked as one.

  POW! POW! POW! POW!

  The volley was a healthy, unified roar, not muffled by wet powder. Orange flames spat from the barrels, illuminating determined faces for a fraction of a second before being swallowed by acrid smoke and mist. The effect was immediate and devastating. Shadows ahead were thrown backward, dark sprays of blood stained the white fog, and aggressive barks turned into yelps of pain and panic.

  "RELOAD!" the corporal ordered, and the soldiers began the quick—now efficient—ritual of reloading, their hands agile in the dry space Isabela maintained at an ever-increasing cost.

  Meanwhile, from the other side of the fog, the response came. An irregular stone ball, the size of a gourd, came spinning through the air over the front line. It hit a man stepping back to reload, crushing his shoulder with a horrible thud. Arrows began to hiss, coming from high angles, falling randomly into the group, occasionally accompanied by cries of pain.

  "BARRIER!" Tainá ordered, her voice finding strength again.

  She and the other three earth adepts who still had some energy acted in concert. With synchronized effort, they made the ground tremble and a low, curved wall of compacted earth rise before the musket line, protecting them from stones and arrows.

  The platoon finished reloading, sweating and with hearts in their mouths.

  "LOWER THE WALL!" Pedro commanded.

  The adepts released their concentration, and the central section of the barrier collapsed.

  "FIRE!"

  Another volley of muskets fired into the mist, hitting shapes trying to approach during the pause. More screams. The barrier was raised again, a deadly, exhausting cycle.

  It was then that the attack changed. It didn't come from the front.

  It came from above, like personified lightning. It crashed to the ground, creating a blast of wind that cleared the fog and knocked several soldiers down.